This thesis discusses the explication of the implicit side of language, from the perspective of the self, the social, and the text, as situated in the wider context of thinking about language 'beyond post-modernism.' Language is first discussed as an intricacy, an intricate and changing complex of explicit signs and implicit elements and processes. It is shown that the implicit processes, such the speaking of being (Heidegger), focusing (Gendlin), and the interrelatedness of language and culture (Agar), are ruptured by processes like deconstruction (Derrida) and the semiotic breach of the symbolic (Kristeva). Explication brings a part of the implicit to the surface in the form of creativity (Deleuze) and critique, which is also discussed in the examples of play (Gadamer) and care. The transformations involved are illustrated in reflections on writing (Plato), poetry (Trakl), life as immigrant, and on translation as a philosophical practice.

Observing the movement in recent Christian theology, I examine the change in depth metaphors and theological works, as they move from tendencies of solidity and proposition-forming, to more fluid imaginations in their substance and style. I conduct an indirect comparison between John A.T. Robinson and Catherine Keller, engaging Buber, Tillich and Virginia Mollenkott, specifically focusing on themes of depth and working through a filter of social and ecological justice.Throughout the essay I acknowledge the importance of the continuing re-articulation of theology, the necessity of exploring the roots of Christianity, and I affirm the need for new language for the task of articulating an appropriate image of divinity and humanity. I contend that while Keller is well able to continue Robinson's theological project for the next generation, his work is still valuable in contributing Christology and New Testament studies, both of these being somewhat absent from Keller's work.

My thesis inquires into the reasons behind Proclus' and Boethius' adaptation of discussion more geometrico in their metaphysical works, Elements of Theology and De Hebdomadibus, respectively. My argument is that each philosopher is engaged in a spiritual exercise to the effect that each sought, in his own way, to predispose readers to the anagogical acceptance of profound matters of faith.

My thesis is an introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis--and assumes all of the connotations of the word "introduction". I have tried to make it as clear and simple as possible, constantly reiterating each point in hopes that the reader will find some sort of conceptual handle in which to gain access to Lacan's world. This thesis begins with an attempt to situate the Lacanian project in its historical and theoretical context. I proffer the contributing factors that led Lacan to initiate his Seminar followed by the theoretical tasks he wished to accomplish therein. I then transition into a discussion dealing with the underlying mechanisms of language that form Jacques Lacan's specific strand of psychoanalysis.With Lacan's understanding of the functioning of the signifier in place I shift into a topological discussion of the individual symbolic concepts crucial to an understanding of the nature of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Throughout this discussion I endeavor to show how the concepts interrelate and influence the formation of all the parts of the nascent amorphous theoretical whole; all the while drawing on examples from popular culture in order to illustrate these concepts to the non-specialized reader.In the third and final section of the thesis I discuss how these concepts are manifest in the psychoanalytic practice--the actually existing analytic session. I venture a guess at how these concepts effect the work of the analyst and the analysand in order to suggest an explanation of what the terminus of analysis looks like.

"One of the most contentious issues in aesthetics is whether or not there can be truth in art. This is so because the question of the possibility of truth in art implicitly assumes two other fundamental questions: the nature of truth and the nature of human understanding. In his treatment of truth in art, Gadamer comes down roundly on the side of the possiblity of truth in art. In this thesis, I show how Gadamer's approval of truth in art hinges on his notion of hermeneutics and his belief in art's transformative power, and propose that his account of truth in art is still a viable and creative approach to the question today. After taking a look at the Kantian, Heideggerian, and Aristotelian background with which Gadamer is operating in his treatment of truth and art, I trace where this led Gadamer, specifically in the sense of his move to have aesthetics so closely connected to hermeneutics. Through interaction with work by Mary Devereaux, I highlight some concerns over Gadamer's use of tradition and of order as a fundamental feature of the artwork, and give an account of how those concerns may be addressed."

This thesis explores and makes explicit various aspects of Richard Rorty's rhetorical program for shifting our traditional conceptions of reference and truth. Rorty wants to persuade us to adopt verification (coping) semantics in place of correspondence seeking semantics. I argue against his intuition pumps by considering Keith Donnellan's remarks on description and reference and argue for a view of correspondence truth that is based on what the object, whatever the object, permits us to say. Making this point allows us to see a purposeful conflation in Rorty's work. If beliefs are true because they are justified, Rorty's fallibilistic remark that any of our beliefs may not be true (in the cautionary sense) would follow. But truths may pay because they follow (as "attributive representations") from 'unblocked' objects, or they may just pay. Thus, I suggest that Donnellan preserves William James' remark that we desire correspondence truth, an everyday explanatory notion.

In this study, I propose through the thought of Jacques Ellul that humanity has perverted the original creation. In doing so, we have constructed what I will call a Counter-Creation; a second creation. In this counter-creation, mankind has replaced the creativity and the fluidity of the original. Along with this I argue in the second chapter that we have socially constructed new gods, which I will call sacred myths. These sacred myths are unquestionable, and hold power over against humanity. In the third chapter, I depart from Ellul, and go beyond his reflections on the vanity of life, on the vanity of socially constructing the world around us. Through the story of Cain and Abel, I propose that in Qoheleth there are two types of vanities in play: One that is unrighteous and one that is righteous. In doing so, I hope to help people recognize their finitude, while not being paralyzed or being tempted to plunge into chaos due to the meaninglessness of life.

Jurgen Habermas argues for a paradigm change in critical theory from Theodor W. Adorno's philosophy of consciousness to his own linguistically-turned theory. Habermas claims that Adorno's conception of reason sets up an antagonistic relationship between subject and object that can only be overcome by a non-rational mimesis with nature. This thesis defends Adorno against Habermas, and argues that the linguistic turn is a mistake. Chapter 1 outlines Habermas's critique, and corrects some of his specific misunderstandings of Adorno. Chapter 2 offers a positive defense of Adorno. By means of an expanded notion of nature, Adorno shows how the relation between subject and object need not be the antagonistic one characteristic of so much of modern philosophy. Chapter 3 argues that it is not Adorno's dialectical thought, but Habermas's linguistically-turned critical theory that suffers from an inability properly to articulate the relation between subject and object.

This thesis suggests that Luce Irigaray's recent focus on spirituality in 'Luce Irigaray: key writings' makes explicit themes already suggested by her career-long insistence on the importance of sexual difference. It traces Irigaray's imagination of a dynamic, life-giving duality of sexual difference, suggesting that Irigaray's sexual difference displaces western philosophy's division between the natural and the spiritual; the earth and the sky; and mortals and the divine. In Irigaray's philosophy, cultivating sexual difference between men and women is the key to relinking the natural and the spiritual. This thesis calls this re-linking a religious task.Within this broad project, emphasis is placed on Irigaray's insistence that in order for sexual difference to be our redemption, women need to attend to creating a spiritual world appropriate to our own natural world. Indispensable to this project is the cultivation of a genealogy of mother-daughter relationships. This thesis explores this theme in Irigaray by discussing Drucilla Cornell's book, 'Legacies of dignity: between women and generations', as an Irigarayan genealogical exercise.This thesis also explores Irigaray's demand that western culture rethink its understanding of God. She suggests that we cultivate a sense of the divine as 'sensibly transcendent.' In order to highlight the distinction between Irigaray's divine and a monotheistic, transcendent God, this thesis turns to Patricia Huntington's article 'Contra Irigaray: the couple is not the middle term of the ethical whole.'The concluding chapter explores Irigaray's reworked notions of incarnation and salvation.Throughout these explorations, this thesis holds that Irigaray's re-integration of the natural and the spiritual will promote more ethical living -- with others, our selves, the earth and the divine.

In this study, I consider the possibility of extending Hannah Arendt's critiques of conformity and behavior and her insights on thinking and moral philosophy to Christian life and culture. With Arendt, I argue that the possibility to refrain from perpetrating great evils made possible by uncritical conformity resides within the activity of thinking itself, as she defines it. Furthermore, I argue, again with Arendt, that refraining from such evils is a moral decision which finds its ultimate standard in the self. Although she culls many helpful insights from religious traditions, Arendt refrains from extending her moral philosophy into any realm in which religion is considered to be the valid standard of what constitutes moral behavior. Instead, I argue, against Arendt, that Christians can, and perhaps should, develop a more mature understanding of religion and a more "covenantal" understanding of their relationship with the divine.

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